you're my soul and inspiration
by KiaraAlexisKlay
Summary: my first published fanfic but the second, no third, dark angel fic i've written. maxalec.


_**Title: (You're My) Soul and Inspiration**_

_**Author: Kristin (KiaraAlexisKlaymaker)**_

_**Summary: Songfic**_

_**Rating: PG-13 (should be) for some mild language.**_

_**Pairing: Max/Alec**_

_**Disclaimer: **_

_**I do not own Dark Angel; if I did, Max and Alec would be a couple, there would be more than two seasons, and Max wouldn't have to be freaky Lady Jesus savior of transgenics, transhumans, and ordinaries everywhere. Unfortunately, James Cameron, John Eglee, and Fox own DA. Pity.**_

_**I also don't own the song, they belong to the Righteous Brothers Bill and Bobby, their producers, and the writers of the song. It's an oldie but a goodie as my mom likes to say. **_

**(You're My) Soul and Inspiration **

It was so stupid. It shouldn't have happened, but it did, and it was my entire fault. It wasn't her fault I was in a bad mood when I came in; she honestly wasn't trying to pick a fight, just asking a question, and I snarled back at her some stupid remarks, mean remarks, degrading. It was like a one-two punch; you're out, down for the count.

I could see the months of building a friendship and trust and dare I say it, possibly love, was thrown down the tubes. I could read her face, as always, which had just gotten easier as the more we grew close the easier it was to read her. My attack had come out of nowhere; it threw her off balance. Her eyes and face ran a gamut of emotion: surprise, shock, confusion, a little anger, but mostly hurt and pain before that damned Manticore mask shut down everything.

It was like my anger was sucked away and someone had thrown me into arctic waters, her voice became as cold and impersonal as it had been the first few months we'd known each other, back when to her, I was the screw-up, the selfish Manticore bastard who needed to grow up and get a life before he killed someone else in the process.

I knew it was self-defense, but damn, it still hurt for her to talk and look at me that way. She was actually quite calm as she told me not to worry, she'd get someone else to do the requested work, and then she turned on her heel in a textbook perfect about face and marched off, head held high and back straight. The untouchable soldier.

As Max often says, 'This bitch was back,' and from the glares I received from my fellow Manticorians, they didn't like having that Max back. The one she'd been at the beginning, the all-knowing 09er that was going to lend a snapping hand to the newly freed.

_Girl, I can't let you do this_

_Let you walk away_

_Girl, how can I live through this_

_When you're all I wake up for each day?_

I raced desperately after a fleeing Max, knowing that the face she'd turned away from me was hurt, and calling myself every kind of fool because it was me who put that look there.

Our relationship had only gotten better, not worse, as the siege on Terminal City continued. It'd been about six months since that night Max had urged us all, transgenics and transhumans alike, to stay and fight for what should be ours. Freedom, home, family, safety. I had stayed at first because I knew that Max would need some help keeping the fragile trust and respect she'd elicited from TC's growing transgenic population, a lot of because she had left in 09 and didn't know some of the basic siege protocols that those who stayed behind learned, especially the C.O.'s of which I'd been the best.

Max now looked to me for advice, whether it was for a heist or how to deal with an increasing number of X-series coming to our Eden, and while she still griped and swatted me, the hits and barbs were more playful and less intentional, almost like a ritual challenge just between the two of us. It came of something of a shock to me when I finally had admitted to that I looked forward to, no anticipated, these little verbal wars.

_Baby, you're my soul and my heart's inspiration_

_You're all I've got to get me by_

_You're my soul and my heart's inspiration_

_Without you baby, what good am I?_

Yeah, life sucked with the virus and everything, but Max had come to the point where she finally admitted to herself that it was futile to keep up hope on a cure and even if one was found, her fairytale ending with Logan. As much as Logan had meant to her, Max finally did the big gesture, and let him go. Things wouldn't have worked out anyway: he couldn't stay in TC longer than a few days and she couldn't leave her new family and responsibility, nor would she ever entertain that thought.

I remembered that day how my heart had twisted at the sight of Max's face streaming with tears when she told the man she'd loved for two and a half years that it would be best if he left for good. There was something about a strong woman's tears that could break a man's soul into a million different shards and twist him about until he'd sell himself to whatever deity to stop them, or make them better. There had only been one other time that I ever saw Max cry, and that had been the night I was arrested for a murder I didn't commit, the night that Max told me about brother Ben.

I felt bad as I watched Max release a depth of emotion I honestly hadn't believed her capable. For as long as I'd known her, she always kept that 'don't-mess-with-me-I-can-make-it-on-my-own' attitude firmly in place and I suppose I came to think that she didn't let people that close.

My own experiences with lost love were hard, I could admit; but Max's was a whole new pain level I knew was on par or surpassed the fledgling love I held for Rachel. Max had loved and now she was losing her love not to death but the virus and circumstance that she could never surmount. And that knowing that her love was alive and well but unattainable…that was worse than watching that person die.

_I never had much goin'_

_But at least I had you_

_How can you walk out knowin'_

_I ain't got nothin' left if you do?_

Max had been quiet for the next few weeks, not quiet as in not speaking a word quiet, but quiet as in contemplative and poignant. She never let it get in the way of her work, going out of her way to make sure her people were as safe as she could make them, as well fed as their meager supplies would let them, and show them that it was possible to live with emotions and the outside world. But it was still there, at the edges, and I ached to erase the sorrow lurking there.

But that was the time that she really started to open up, and I started to get glimpses of the Max that OC and Logan and Sketchy had said she was before her recapture, and she chose me to be her closest confidante. The sadness was still there but it didn't consume her as many, including myself, had feared.

Instead, there was a strength and purpose flaring brightly within those chocolate colored depths, a strength born of pain, sorrow, loss, love, and triumph. There was also a mischievous side that shocked the residents of TC that their leader whom they thought had been so tightly coiled could ever come up with pranks and schemes worthy of myself.

She was still the tough-ass chick; there was no denying that, and me and any other hapless male caught in her furious maelstrom bore the bruises to prove it. But she also revealed a lighter, less uptight side of Max that I could understand how Logan couldn't have resisted falling in love with her. How I myself can't seem to, no matter how hard I try not to.

_Baby, you're my soul and my heart's inspiration_

_You're all I've got to get me by_

_You're my soul and my heart's inspiration_

_Without you baby, what good am I, oh what good am I?_

She challenged me to new heights, whether by a well-aimed insult or a smirking twitch of the lips, she sometimes didn't even have to do anything and I would find myself doing my best to become someone she could count on. At first, it was because I was tired of her treating me like she treated Joshua: like an overgrown child who didn't know what he was doing or needed and had to be led by the hand and told what to do.

Then it was so that she would be proud of me, to accept me, to acknowledge that I was _worthy_. And in that, it frightened me. I was X5-494, Manticore's top assassin, held in esteem by many of the Seattle-based transgenics and –humans alike, I didn't need some…some _rogue_ transgenic female who only had the training of a nine-year old supersoldier to give me acceptance, to make me feel worthy. Did I?

_SPOKEN: Baby, I can't make it withoutcha. And I'm, I'm tellin' ya, honey-you're my_

_reason for laughin', for cryin', for livin', and for dyin'._

It was disturbing when in one of my rare moments of self-introspection, I recognized that I wanted, no _craved_, to know that Max didn't hate, didn't look down on me as a screw-up, or a second-rate carbon copy of a dead brother she longed for, or a pale substitute for the man she truly yearned to love. I realized that I wanted Max to look at me truly, as Alec, the man she had named and gave life meaning to.

Before Max had come charging and affecting my life for the third time, I'd been pretty complacent to be honest. Sure, the first time when she and her 'siblings' broke out it was hell. Almost a year and intensive time in Psy-Ops wasn't a picnic but I had survived, and come out the victor. But afterward I worked my cute transgenic ass off proving to Manticore and the other transgenics that I was a good soldier, that I wasn't a traitor that needed to be _disassembled._ I _was_ worth something.

The second time was only a few short months before I met Max face-to-face. I'd been placed back into training after the whole Berrisford saga, training with the younger X-series, and finding myself enjoying being back in the role of C.O. though the X-7's were creepy little FUBAR freaks I was glad to pass off to their handlers. I had this sweet mini-Black Market going down, and I was kept in amenities that many of my compatriots didn't have.

Of course for a small fee (whether in trading chores or doing a _favor_) they could have those amenities. Then Ben happened, he went psycho and killed a bunch of people, then Manticore once again came calling for X5-494 to report to Psy-Ops. Six months of pure, torturous hell, just to see if I was anything like my so-called twin brother. I hadn't been psycho then, but I bet I would have been after that particular session if I didn't hate them so much to let them be proven right. I had thought that after Rachel, Psy-Ops wouldn't be so bad, but like I'd told Max once, _they have ways of making you forget, and if you couldn't forget, they had ways of making you not care._

_Baby, I can't make it without you_

_Please, I'm begging you baby_

_If you go it will kill me_

_I swear it, Dear, my love can't bear it_

I swore with passion and sincerity as I dodged through the residents of TC looking for the beloved leader. But she had very effectively disappeared. That was another thing I'd had to learn. For so often, I took for granted that just because I had ten years of advanced training on her, that she didn't know how to do certain things, that she acted too human and wasn't transgenic enough for the rest of us.

What I fail to realize sometimes, and what other Manticore lifetime alumni fall into as well, is that Max had spent all the time since she escaped on not being found by people who specialized in tracking transgenics down. That she was transgenic herself, knowing how to use her body and what little training she allowed herself to keep as useful, and one of those skills she acquired was how to disappear. She had skills and techniques that our straight-laced soldier training hadn't covered, so in her own way, she was just as much a master as I was. That thought wasn't comforting as I paused to consider.

If I were an angry or upset Max, where would I go and what would I do? I questioned myself, absently greeting those 'freaks' who called out salutations to little ole _moi_, their adored second in command.

First off, I'd try to find someplace high up where I can look down on the city and realize that my problems aren't so big or bad at all when put in perspective. But that'd come after taking care of my people. Which meant that if she were going to avoid me (provided I stayed in the command HQ) would be out in the city, taking a perimeter check like a good commander surveying her realm.

And once she finishes that, I thought with a grim smile, she'll seek out someplace high, and with view of the one place she had a semblance of peace. With a firm plan of action, I glanced around to get my bearings and I selected the perfect spot.

_You're my soul and my heart's inspiration_

_You're all I've got to get me by_

_You're my soul and my heart's inspiration_

_Without you baby, what good am I, what good am I?_

Max crept onto the roof of the second highest building in Terminal City; it was one of the few that had an unimpeded view of the Space Needle, her one indulgence after her precious _baby_, her Ninja.

She headed straight for the very edge, something within her thrilled at being on the edge, something about the heights called to her and it was one of the few of her baser instincts she treated herself to. Closing her eyes and throwing her head back, she let the wind take the heavy mass of her long, dark hair and whip it around to it's own making, relaxing tensed shoulders, and imagining for a moment that she was riding her baby through the streets of Seattle with nothing but the open road to worry about.

It was these times of quiet delight that proved that she wasn't some cold, heartless bitch, but that she actually cared and the burden she carried was as great as the guilt she felt toward abandoning the rest of us the first time she and her unit escaped.

Max gave a great, heaving sigh, releasing the pent up frustrations of the day to be taken and whipped away by the playful wind.

"Now that's an awful big sigh for someone so tiny," I quipped as I stepped out from my hiding place behind a rooftop air conditioning unit.

Max gave a startled gasp, and I felt momentarily guilty I'd invaded her solitude time, but I was determined to make up for being an ass and that meant braving the choppy waters. Some of the residents of TC (okay, Mole and Dix and Luke and basically anybody who hasn't gotten to know me and Max very well) think I'm stupid for 'bearding the dragon in it's den', and right at that moment, I tended to agree with them.

"Alec," she managed, voice sounding cold but she couldn't quite manage complete indifference. And that slight tremble gave me hope, a small sliver, but hope nonetheless and I plunged ahead.

"I was wrong and I wasn't right," I began again, and Max stopped me, laughing bitterly.

"That usually happens when someone's wrong," she said with a twisted smile, but it was more like she was mocking herself, rather than me even though I was the one she was lashing out at.

"You're right," I agreed and the both of us fell silent, something that amazed me. Not that I couldn't be silent, I could, I just don't very often. It was that I'd given Max just the right cue to tear into me and she just ignored it. Well, aside from that little doozy of 'that usually happens when someone's wrong,' comment, but you get what I mean.

"Max, I was in a bad mood today, and I took it out on you. You didn't do anything to provoke me -wonder of wonders- and I lashed out at you. I gave you my anger instead of my trust, and I lost the person who's become my best friend," I finished quietly, this time not looking at her, finding my feet very fascinating. Max remained silent, and I couldn't take it anymore. Yell, scream, beat me, kick me, do something, but please, don't just say nothing.

I stuffed my hands in my leather jacket's pockets, kicking at the tarmac on the roof, wondering how in the world gravel could find its way up this high. The wind started to blow, ruffling my hair which I'd allowed to grow kinda long and scruffy, and it was chilly this close to winter, enough so that even me being a genetically engineered supersoldier recognized the bite in the air.

So I was a bit put off when I felt two arms come around my waist from behind and felt her lean into my back, cheek resting between my shoulder blades. I closed my eyes and tilted my head back, reveling in her closeness, relaxing against her touch, which she gave so rarely…possibly a throwback of the whole I-can't-let-myself-touch-Logan-or-anybody-else-or-I'll-slip-and-kill-him phase she went through. Whatever it was, I appreciated her touch those few times she did that I hoarded them like a miser with his gold.

"I don't hate you," she finally spoke against the softness of my leather encased back, tightening her hold around my waist, and I put my hands over hers, clasping her closer so she couldn't get away. I absently ran my thumbs in circles on her smooth skin, keeping it just that much more intimate.

"I was just so hurt…you've become my best friend too," she whispered, and I could hear the tears in her voice and finally turned around to wrap her in my arms. Her eyes were full of unshed tears she would never be seen or let fall around the others, for she had to be strong for so many.

"Hey, it's okay…_we're _okay, and I'm so sorry, Max," I repeated, over and over as she started to let the tears slip down.

"I try so hard, Alec, I do. I didn't have the chance to grow up with other transgenics after the Escape and I kept everybody so far away for so long so they couldn't get hurt, or hurt me…and I'm trying, I'm really trying Alec. I know I'm a bitch but I'm trying to change so you all don't think that I don't care about you, because I do, and I just don't want to be alone anymore…" she started to cry as she spoke and I did the only thing I could do.

I kissed her. The girl who kick my ass and balls for being too selfish in the ring. The girl who gave up the one chance for a total cure with the man she'd loved just to save me, who was once again selfish, and tried to play a very nasty bad guy. The girl who took the time to befriend an anomaly that a childhood of growing up hearing false stories had taught her to fear. I kissed _Max_.

She tasted of salt and tears, of cherry lip balm, and a that spicy tang that could only be described by her name: _Max_. She was warm and small and strong and vulnerable all at once; she fit right in the crook of my arms, almost like she'd been specifically designed to do so.

She was perfect. My perfect half, that piece of me that was just waiting to be realized, that part that I never knew I was missing until she came along and I found what it was that made my heart beat and life worth living.

And she was kissing me back.

"Alec…" she breathed my name against my lips and I felt a surge of primal satisfaction and triumph, something about that was so _right_.

"Shh…" I whispered back, capturing her lips again as my tongue flicked across her mouth, requesting entrance, and ecstatic when she granted it. I found myself exploring the contours of her mouth, enjoying the velvety smoothness, allowing myself to lay claim to this undiscovered but already much beloved territory.

I growled deep in my throat, the sound waves running from my mouth to hers, vibrating over her tongue, and the sensation brought an answering moaning purr from her. I tasted her, I tasted Max, all that she offered and _it was good_.

"Max…you mean everything to me," I spoke against her mouth, starting to nibble on the corners, tracing one side of her jaw from chin to ear, perversely pleased with the shuddering reaction I received in reply.

I pulled back, thrilled and proud at once when she made moans of protest at the parting, and made sure I had her eyes and attention.

"I don't want to hurt you again, but I know I'm going to, and I truly don't mean it. When you hurt, I hurt because I don't want you to, and it was worse because I know that this time, your pain was my fault. And that is something I'll never forgive myself for."

"Oh, Alec…" Max tried to speak, her eyes taking on an emotion I was almost afraid to identify so I cut her off.

"No, Max. Don't say anything. Today you were hurt and it was my fault. I'm sorry…I will do everything in my power to make sure that doesn't happen again. You see Max," I took a deep breath and let it out.

"I love you. I think that some part of me always has, deep down inside. That's why I gave you such a hard time, trying to figure my feelings out. Manticore wasn't very big on self-expression so I didn't know what it was until only here recently. You've worked your way into my heart and rooted yourself down there, and it looks like you're not leaving there for a long while."

"And I don't want you to. These past few months I've seen who you really are, watched in pride and delight as you embraced your unique heritage, and let yourself finally become vulnerable enough to let us see the real you, and that and your friendship has been the most important thing to me and I just want you to know that, even if I get mad, I still love you."

"Alec," Max's voice grew soft and tender, that special loving tone she used only when talking of her family, and once, long ago, Logan Cale. I was both excited and scared that she used it with my name, but I couldn't help but feel that it felt right, just as holding and kissing her had felt right.

"I love you too," she smiled at me, that special, special smile she reserved for when she truly let herself show.

"I think I have for some time now, I just didn't want to admit it. For so long, every time I let myself go long enough to care, something always happened and I'm left standing in the dark, alone. First my family, when Manticore and Lydecker took away brothers and sisters for no good reason…then ourselves, when we ran to freedom. I'd try to have relationships after that, but I never could, I never seemed to feel that safety, that okay to just be myself. One of those failed relationships called me a 'human fog bank'," she laughed in a self-depreciating manner, and I hugged her close, for I could taste that old pain like it was my own.

"Then I met Logan, and he brought me out of myself long enough to see that I wasn't the only one hurting or with a past and secrets and a painful life, that I could make a difference in someone else's life, and how it felt good, decent when I did. I never had that before, and if only for that, I'll love and cherish him for what he did. But you," and this time she stood back and looked at me from the circle of my arms, and she was smiling.

"You came along and you showed me what I was missing. You showed me that I didn't have to be afraid to be Max, X5-452, the special ordered transgenic. That I could enjoy being different even in adversity, and you taught me to love myself. And when I started to do that, it was easier to like others, even Mole," she grinned and I couldn't resist the smirk that crossed my face. She swatted me playfully on one arm.

"And for that, I will always be in your debt," she smiled, and it became deeper, more…. just more, and I found my heart tripping in anticipation.

"You never let me wallow in the illusion I'd cast around myself, you never allowed me to be less than what I could be. You challenged me, goaded me, mocked me, and loved me into being who I am today. I don't have to be anyone other than Max to you. And even through all my wanting to be more human, you saw straight through the lies and the deception, right to the heart of the matter. Then you started becoming someone that I could trust, someone who I could count on not to be afraid to tell me what's on your mind and how you think of whatever it is I've come up with at the time."

"And then it was only a matter of time before I found myself falling, falling so very far and so very fast, and hoping that you'd catch me, or at least not be afraid to fall with me."

"Geeze, Max," I kissed her again, and I couldn't restrain the shout of glee or the feeling of joy that suffused me. She loved me, she loved, and she loved me!

I picked her up by her waist and hoisted her in the air, and I twirled us farther back on the roof, laughing and shouting, and basically making myself a fool. But I was a happy fool, and she was right there with me, laughing and shouting and throwing her arms and head back like a little girl in absolute delight of the moment. If I hadn't already loved her, I would have then, and it just clenched it for me.

"Ah, Max," I murmured when I had enough and just had to bring her closer, enjoying the warmth of her against mine.

"Don't you know? You're my soul, and my heart's inspiration."

"Hmmm…" she purred to me, soulful eyes peering into my own hazel ones, pulling me down into the perfect kiss.

_Mm-mm-mm Mm-mm-mm_

_Mm-mm-mm_


End file.
